Some 2,500 years ago, a group of young women met their tragic destiny in the middle of the Negev as they were led by one of the trade caravans that crossed the Middle East for millennia, possibly to be sold as temple prostitutes, a new excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has revealed. The site, a mass burial structure, was discovered in 2021 by Dr. Martin David Pasternak, but it was disclosed to the public for the first time on Wednesday.

The area was first surveyed within the framework of a salvage excavation ahead of construction works near the Tlalim Junction. As the excavation progressed, the archaeologists soon realized that the site, featuring the remains of dozens of people and a wealth of unique artifacts from the mid-first millennium BCE, had no parallel in Israel or the entire region.

“We know that human trafficking happened in the area for millennia until very recently,” IAA senior researcher Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini told The Times of Israel in a phone interview. “We are all familiar with the biblical story of Joseph being sold to a caravan of Midianites, then to the Ishmaelites, and finally to Egypt. However, archaeological finds testifying to the phenomenon are rare. Our discoveries seem to be connected precisely to that human trade.”

One of the first unearthed artifacts was an alabaster vessel.

“I recognized it as a container used to transport frankincense and myrrh common in the south of the Arabian peninsula between the 8th and the 2nd century BCE,” Erickson-Gini said. “Then, we realized that the architecture of the small building we uncovered was typical of the 5th and 4th centuries, which allowed us to pinpoint the period more precisely.”

Soon, the archaeologists discovered that dozens of people had been buried there.

“The building was surrounded by piers, and in between them, we found close to 60 individuals, plenty of rings, bracelets, and jewelry, mostly in copper and bronze, as well as Egyptian and Phoenician-style scarabs and other objects,” Erickson-Gini said.

An additional seven skeletons were found in another........

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